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wkmmm
ORISK
ON PAQl 5
/ #
4 S
|
t —■ i voice
News and opinion
Me#t. TtfoBrLtCS Ccompj
S^OO FOURTH- fyVSo
Seventh Year 135th Issue February 17, 1986 10,000 Copies
Subscriptions $15.00 year stapled, $20.00 enveloped
1517 LaSalle #E Minneapolis, MN 5%H» v&
"No proposals from AIDS Project," say
state official now pushing contact tracin
by Tim Campbell
According to Dr. Mike
Osterholm, state epidemiologist
and the leading authority on the
AIDS epidemic in Minnesota,
and also the chief contact between the local gay community, the Minnesota Department
of Health and the State
Legislature, a proposal for contact tracing as a method for
preventing AIDS has become
the focus of media attention
because the Minnesota AIDS
Project failed to come up with
any other proposals.
The next meeting of the
Governor's Task Force on
AIDS, at which proposals from
the AIDS project could be offered, is scheduled for Tuesday,
February 18.
No information could be obtained about possible proposals
from the. AIDS Project on
Thursday or Friday. According
to the staff, the Project director
was gone early for the holiday
weekend on Friday and not due
back until Tuesday.
Dr. John Weiser said that he
and Morris Floyd, the members
of the board of M.A.P. most
likely to write some kind of proposal, will not have time to
discuss the matter until Tuesday
morning. This leaves them very
little time to work out a
proposal.
In the meantime, rumors of
efforts at the State Capitol to
limit all expenditure of state
funds for AIDS prevention to
contact tracing are rampant.
Allegedly such a measure was
to be attached to a bill coming
out of the Health and Human
Services Committee on Thursday or Friday. The rumor did
not pan out to be factual.
The gist of preventing AIDS
by contact tracing counts on
finding people who have been
exposed to the HTLV-III virus
and having Health Department
interviews with all their sexual
contacts over the last one to
seven years. This personal interview is proposed by persons
who think it will wake up a lot
of people who are in denial
about their chances of getting
the disease.
Proponents of contact tracing argue that AIDS is a sexually
transmitted disease and that law
requires such contact notification and tracing for diseases
which are less deadly than
AIDS. By analogy, they would
demand AIDS contact tracing.
Opponents of contact tracing
claim that government interference will scare gay and
bisexual men away from even
taking the test in the first place.
Opponents also point out
that showing anti-bodies to
HTLV-III is only a statistical hint
of possibly being at risk for the
disease, not a diagnosis.
The opponents point out
finally that no treatment is
available for persons who are
told they have been contacted.
Alternative Proposals
Alternative proposals to contact tracing for getting persons
at risk for contacting AIDS to
avoid that risk are usually called "educational" programs.
To this point, the Minnesota
AIDS Project has limited its
"educational" efforts to distribution of flyers on safe sex. They
have placed the flyers passively in receptacles in gay bars and
bathhouses for customers to
pick up. The AIDS Project has
also distributed about 20,000
condoms free of charge through
gay distribution points. Many
businesses charge that M.A.P.
has been downright stingy with
the free condoms. v
Other more aggressive campaigns to get people to practice
safe sex used or proposed in
other cities have included: active distribution of safe sex flyers
at the doors of gay bars. This
would put the campaigning for
safe sex at least on the level of
assertiveness commonly used
in soliciting political votes.
The Minnesota AIDS Project
volunteers have never been
asked to push its literature campaign that aggressively.
In most other major cities, the
various AIDS projects have obtained grants for advertising
campaigns in gay newspapers,
community papers, straight
papers, on radio and television
and in billboard bus advertising.
These ad campaigns are
designed to catch the attention
of the potential AIDS victim
wherever he might be, and sow
the seed of concern in his mind.
Some AIDS projects have
prepared messages that are
pleasing to the ear and compatible with the disco environment
which are played nightly in ga\,
bars and bathhouses
throughout the community.
The Minnesota AIDS Project
has so far neither requested sufficient funds nor spent any of its
funds existing for this kind of
campaign.
According to Mike
Osterholm, "Time is running
out." Osterholm sees contact
tracing as an important enough
way of changing people that he
is willing to spend half the state
budget for preventing AIDS on
contact tracing. That's about
$585,000.
The next meeting of the
Governor's Task Force on
AIDS is at 7:30 p. m. Tuesday,
February 18 at the Minnesota
Department of Health's Board
Room on the first floor of the
building at 717 SE Delaware
close to the University of Minnesota Hospitals. The meeting
is open to the public.
O-O
CDC and Seattle release names
of AIDS patients
According to City Pages (2/12/86), the National Center for
Disease Control in Atlanta recently released a list of names of persons with AIDS "by mistake" and the Seattle Health Department
deliberately provided its list of persons with AIDS to the Seattle Police
Department. These incidents may prove troublesome in the advent
of proposals to initiate AIDS contact tracing whenever persons test
■ positive on HTLV-III tests. In California, the AIDS test is administered
by law with extreme confidentiality insured. Testers never know the
tested person's name. He is assigned a random number.
City Pages author Bruce Rubenstein says his information was published in a report published in 1983 by the Committee on Government
Operations in the 90th Congress under the title "The Federal
Response to AIDS. "The information was more recently published
by Doubleday in Dennis Altman's new release, AIDS in the Mind
of America.

wkmmm
ORISK
ON PAQl 5
/ #
4 S
|
t —■ i voice
News and opinion
Me#t. TtfoBrLtCS Ccompj
S^OO FOURTH- fyVSo
Seventh Year 135th Issue February 17, 1986 10,000 Copies
Subscriptions $15.00 year stapled, $20.00 enveloped
1517 LaSalle #E Minneapolis, MN 5%H» v&
"No proposals from AIDS Project," say
state official now pushing contact tracin
by Tim Campbell
According to Dr. Mike
Osterholm, state epidemiologist
and the leading authority on the
AIDS epidemic in Minnesota,
and also the chief contact between the local gay community, the Minnesota Department
of Health and the State
Legislature, a proposal for contact tracing as a method for
preventing AIDS has become
the focus of media attention
because the Minnesota AIDS
Project failed to come up with
any other proposals.
The next meeting of the
Governor's Task Force on
AIDS, at which proposals from
the AIDS project could be offered, is scheduled for Tuesday,
February 18.
No information could be obtained about possible proposals
from the. AIDS Project on
Thursday or Friday. According
to the staff, the Project director
was gone early for the holiday
weekend on Friday and not due
back until Tuesday.
Dr. John Weiser said that he
and Morris Floyd, the members
of the board of M.A.P. most
likely to write some kind of proposal, will not have time to
discuss the matter until Tuesday
morning. This leaves them very
little time to work out a
proposal.
In the meantime, rumors of
efforts at the State Capitol to
limit all expenditure of state
funds for AIDS prevention to
contact tracing are rampant.
Allegedly such a measure was
to be attached to a bill coming
out of the Health and Human
Services Committee on Thursday or Friday. The rumor did
not pan out to be factual.
The gist of preventing AIDS
by contact tracing counts on
finding people who have been
exposed to the HTLV-III virus
and having Health Department
interviews with all their sexual
contacts over the last one to
seven years. This personal interview is proposed by persons
who think it will wake up a lot
of people who are in denial
about their chances of getting
the disease.
Proponents of contact tracing argue that AIDS is a sexually
transmitted disease and that law
requires such contact notification and tracing for diseases
which are less deadly than
AIDS. By analogy, they would
demand AIDS contact tracing.
Opponents of contact tracing
claim that government interference will scare gay and
bisexual men away from even
taking the test in the first place.
Opponents also point out
that showing anti-bodies to
HTLV-III is only a statistical hint
of possibly being at risk for the
disease, not a diagnosis.
The opponents point out
finally that no treatment is
available for persons who are
told they have been contacted.
Alternative Proposals
Alternative proposals to contact tracing for getting persons
at risk for contacting AIDS to
avoid that risk are usually called "educational" programs.
To this point, the Minnesota
AIDS Project has limited its
"educational" efforts to distribution of flyers on safe sex. They
have placed the flyers passively in receptacles in gay bars and
bathhouses for customers to
pick up. The AIDS Project has
also distributed about 20,000
condoms free of charge through
gay distribution points. Many
businesses charge that M.A.P.
has been downright stingy with
the free condoms. v
Other more aggressive campaigns to get people to practice
safe sex used or proposed in
other cities have included: active distribution of safe sex flyers
at the doors of gay bars. This
would put the campaigning for
safe sex at least on the level of
assertiveness commonly used
in soliciting political votes.
The Minnesota AIDS Project
volunteers have never been
asked to push its literature campaign that aggressively.
In most other major cities, the
various AIDS projects have obtained grants for advertising
campaigns in gay newspapers,
community papers, straight
papers, on radio and television
and in billboard bus advertising.
These ad campaigns are
designed to catch the attention
of the potential AIDS victim
wherever he might be, and sow
the seed of concern in his mind.
Some AIDS projects have
prepared messages that are
pleasing to the ear and compatible with the disco environment
which are played nightly in ga\,
bars and bathhouses
throughout the community.
The Minnesota AIDS Project
has so far neither requested sufficient funds nor spent any of its
funds existing for this kind of
campaign.
According to Mike
Osterholm, "Time is running
out." Osterholm sees contact
tracing as an important enough
way of changing people that he
is willing to spend half the state
budget for preventing AIDS on
contact tracing. That's about
$585,000.
The next meeting of the
Governor's Task Force on
AIDS is at 7:30 p. m. Tuesday,
February 18 at the Minnesota
Department of Health's Board
Room on the first floor of the
building at 717 SE Delaware
close to the University of Minnesota Hospitals. The meeting
is open to the public.
O-O
CDC and Seattle release names
of AIDS patients
According to City Pages (2/12/86), the National Center for
Disease Control in Atlanta recently released a list of names of persons with AIDS "by mistake" and the Seattle Health Department
deliberately provided its list of persons with AIDS to the Seattle Police
Department. These incidents may prove troublesome in the advent
of proposals to initiate AIDS contact tracing whenever persons test
■ positive on HTLV-III tests. In California, the AIDS test is administered
by law with extreme confidentiality insured. Testers never know the
tested person's name. He is assigned a random number.
City Pages author Bruce Rubenstein says his information was published in a report published in 1983 by the Committee on Government
Operations in the 90th Congress under the title "The Federal
Response to AIDS. "The information was more recently published
by Doubleday in Dennis Altman's new release, AIDS in the Mind
of America.